Gilbert was a lesson well learnt

HURRICANE Gilbert, which in 1988 struck Jamaica leaving 45 dead and millions in damage, was a lesson well learnt and a catalyst for disaster risk management, two of the country’s bright minds believe.

“What stands out the most is the level of activity that takes place within the general population once we are aware of an impending storm. It is not yet perfect in the context of a people with a culture that is risk conscious but certainly if you compared the approach to Gilbert as an arriving storm to current storms you would have seen significant improvement in that regard,” executive director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) Ronald Jackson told the Jamaica Observer from his office in Barbados yesterday in a reflective moment.Jackson said Jamaicans at the time had probably used their experience of weather systems such as what was then called the ’51 storm’ (Charlie) and others to pre-judge what Gilbert would have brought, only to be caught by surprise.“By the time Gilbert would have come around there was a sense of complacency in our population that they just did not believe that Jamaica could have been impacted and that was reflected not just in terms of the way people responded to that event but the whole culture of government of our sectors, of our businesses, there was not a risk management culture in 1988,” he said.That behaviour, however, might mostly be gone with the wind, he said.“If we look at today’s Jamaica we see where more and more individuals are seeking out knowledge about how to be ready for these events, you would have seen improvements certainly in terms of roof construction, the securing of roofs, not that it is at the level where it should be but it is far advanced,” Jackson pointed out.“People are using more hurricane straps in construction in the formal sector. [With] a lot of houses in the formal structure the rooftops were destroyed in Gilbert, so now we are seeing less and less of that. Some of the lessons coming out of Gilbert are actually finding its way into the practices in the construction sector,” he added.Furthermore, the CDEMA head said, sectors are now more aware of disaster risks and the level of exposure that their sector faces.“So [for] tourism and agriculture you are seeing more investment in ensuring that the sector is a little more resilient. We are learning. You see where continuity planning is finding its way more and more into the private sector where they are now ensuring that their business operations are hurricane ready,” he noted.“In the past you would not have seen such a level of investment at the private sector level on hurricane resilience and overall disaster resilience. So we are in fact seeing year over year improvements, but if we are to compare the decade of the 80s where we saw Gilbert to the current decade, you would certainly see some improvements,” Jackson told the Observer.He however pointed out that the island still has some way to go.“Work still needs to be done however in terms of how we treat with the hardening of our infrastructure. Our drains, coastal defences, the facilities that we use for emergency shelters such as schools, the communities where we see quite a bit of informal settlements and that is where a lot of work needs to be done going forward so that if we were to face another Gilbert we would not have that sector of our population at a high level of risk,” Jackson said.In the meantime, he said, Jamaica should do more to preserve its natural defences which have proved more than a saviour in times past.“One of the clear signs of that and an area I think we need to go back as a people to look at how we treat is the environment. The natural ecosystems play a significant role in terms of reducing the level of impact of these storms. What we have seen certainly in a number of context is damage to the coastal ecosystems, whether the mangroves or coral reefs, and that leaves the coastline very exposed to the ravages of the winds that come ashore and also the storm surges,” he noted.“So whilst we haven’t seen another Gilbert-type event, we do see indicators that there is much work that needs to be done in the extent of our coastal protection, the health of our ecosystems and the character and quality of our built infrastructure,” Jackson said yesterday.In the meantime, he is appealing for more to be done to empower entities such as the Meteorological Services so they can provide the kind of climate-related services to disaster management actors, infrastructure planners and developers to enable them to make proper development decisions.“It is imperative to improve our planning and enforcement practises especially as it relates to construction in areas where it shouldn’t occur, that is an area we still have to take in hand and look at the best strategies, and there are strategies that can be applied,” he added.In the meantime, Acting Director General of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) Richard Thompson said that Gilbert was for Jamaica a turning point.“It has been 25 years since and looking at Hurricane Gilbert in perspective I think that was a catalyst as it relates to a lot of our growth in disaster risk management in Jamaica,” he told the Observer.“Many persons were saying we were a God-blessed country and we would not be hit by a hurricane but we were in fact hit. Since Gilbert what it has done is it has improved our awareness,” he noted.“Since Gilbert there was a revision of the National Disaster Plan, also the Act that governs the operation of the ODPEM also underwent a name change from the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response Co-ordination in 1993,” he said, pointing also to the emphasis being placed on public education campaigns.“Then there are the developments in the whole shelter management issue where we are getting non-governmental organisations involved. There is integrated disaster risk reduction which speaks to the collaborative efforts of all the agencies involved in disaster mitigation,” Thompson pointed out.“We have been putting in a lot of work and I think Gilbert was the catalyst for that in terms of how prepared we are,” the ODPEM acting director general said.He, too, noted the improvements in the housing stock as the result of lessons learnt from Gilbert.“The fact that we lost so many roofs in Gilbert and a large percentage of the housing was damaged, a lot went into building out the sector, extending to the use of hurricane straps and zoning for areas that are highly vulnerable and looking at integrating disaster risk reduction in the sector,” he noted.“About 60 per cent of the damage [caused by] Gilbert was in the agriculture sector and you will find we have done a lot of work there, as well as in the tourism sector. We have come a very, very far way in terms of comprehensive disaster management,” Thompson said.In the meantime, he said work continues on further battening down the island with a specially appointed sub-committee now looking at the framework for the introduction of no-build zones, how those will be defined and managed along with the appropriate legislation.“We have 947 communities in Jamaica and over 300 are considered highly vulnerable.There is a need to have no-build zones and we are looking at that,” he told the Observer.Thompson said the issue of mandatory evacuation was being looked at but noted that this has a number of legal implications, in which case it might be easier to maintain a compulsory evacuation regime.Gilbert swept the entire island on September 12, 1988 and became the first direct hurricane impact since Hurricane Charlie on August 17, 1951.According to statistics from ODPEM, the hurricane, in its eight-hour rampage across the length of Jamaica, caused estimated loss to the island’s domestic crops of J$769 million. The banana industry, comprising 12,000 acres for the local market and 7,100 for the export market, was totally destroyed.Damage was reported in all resort areas on the north coast. Over 80 per cent of the hotels suffered damage. Overall damage to the tourism sector was estimated at J$431 million.Damage caused by Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988. (PHOTOS: MICHAEL GORDON)

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Gilbert was a lesson well learnt

The day Gilbert ravaged Jamaica

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the day Hurricane Gilbert unleashed its fury on Jamaica, killing more than 40 persons and leaving millions of dollars in damage.

SUNDAY night, September 11, 1988, New Kingston was alive with mostly young people having a good time at The Club, one of the hottest spots in the capital city at the time.For the most part they, like many other Jamaicans, had ignored TV weatherman Roy Forrester’s forecast that Tropical Storm Gilbert had strengthened to a category 3 hurricane and had Jamaica in its crosshairs.The following morning they awoke to the reality that Jamaica was about to be clobbered by this monster hurricane, which had exited the African coastline on September 3 and had developed into the 12th tropical depression of the season on September 8 on its approach to the Windward Islands.Convinced that Jamaica would receive Gilbert’s full force, the authorities warned Jamaicans to stay indoors.Instructions as to what to expect as the eye passed over the island were also issued: The wind and rain will cease, they said, but that will not be the end of the storm, so be careful.Then, near mid-morning, electricity was cut off and the country waited in fear.Making landfall on Jamaica’s eastern tip at approximately 9:00 am, Gilbert, packing winds of near 130 miles per hour, ravaged the entire island.Official data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that Gilbert claimed 45 lives in Jamaica. The monster cyclone also destroyed hundreds of homes and infrastructure, downed electricity poles, and wiped out crops and livestock.Extensive flooding was also reported across the island as Gilbert produced storm surges up to 19 feet high and dumped more than 32 inches of rain on the country.The damage was so devastating that then Prime Minister Edward Seaga, after an aerial tour of the island, said that the country looked like Hiroshima after the atom bomb was dropped on that Japanese city in World War II.Total damage was estimated at US$4 billion.After its rampage across Jamaica, Gilbert strengthened to a category 4 storm on September 13 and slammed Grand Cayman before gaining category 5 strength to pulverise the north-east coast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula on September 14.It eventually weakened to category 2 before unleashing its fury on the western Gulf of Mexico.According to the NOAA, “estimates are that Gilbert produced between 15 and 20 feet of surge along the Yucatan and eight to 13 feet at landfall in mainland Mexico”.The NOAA also reported that Gilbert’s remnants spawned 29 tornadoes over Texas on September 18, with flooding spreading to the US Midwest as the remnants merged with a frontal boundary over Missouri on September 19.In addition to the 45 deaths in Jamaica, the NOAA said that Gilbert accounted for 202 deaths in Mexico, 30 in Haiti, 12 in Guatemala, 12 in Honduras, five in the Dominican Republic, five in Venezuela, three in the United States, two in Costa Rica, and two in Nicaragua.The deaths in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, the NOAA said, were caused by inland flash flooding from outer rain bands associated with Gilbert.Weather experts said that Gilbert was the most destructive storm in Jamaica’s history and the most severe storm since Hurricane Charlie in 1951.The day after Gilbert’s passage, Ceta Nembhard (now deceased), a Kingston resident who had experienced Hurricane Charlie, remarked: “Well, me did think Charlie did bad, but after yesterday, Charlie a bwoy!”The extensive damage caused by Gilbert resulted in the World Meteorological Organisation retiring the name in the spring of 1989, replacing it with Gordon.This NOAA map shows Hurricane Gilbert’s trek across the Caribbean and into the Gulf of Mexico.

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The day Gilbert ravaged Jamaica

A day late, but still a "GILBERT BABY"

DREDGING through the streets with machetes and sticks in hand, all were equipped for an expedition. They refused to be outdone by the downed trees and landslides that littered the roadway, as nothing would stop them from seeing first-hand who no longer had rooftops over their heads.

The torrential rains and winds of Hurricane Gilbert had subsided somewhat, having done all its damage on Monday, September 12, 1988. But at the first sign of daybreak on Tuesday, members of the Mannings Hill community in Stony Hill, were out in droves, feverishly documenting everything their eyes beheld.Fifty-two-year-old Hannah Barnett, refusing to be left behind, was among them. So too was her unborn child, Kitanya.Barnett was nine months pregnant; in fact, the due date she had been given was September 12.“Everything did pack and ready”, Barnett told the Jamaica Observer. “And when I saw the day came, I said to myself, ‘how dem give me the 12th and I don’t have her yet’.”She further added that she felt absolutely no pain the night of the storm, so off she went the following morning.However, her expedition came to a premature end as Barnett was hit with the first pangs of contraction about 7:00 am, while out exploring with community members. Though baby Kitanya had missed her “due date”, at that point, Barnett found out that she was definitely making her way into the world.Like her expedition plans, all plans associated with giving birth to her second child in the comfort of a hospital room were also shelved. Barnett made her way to a relative’s house and a midwife from a neighbouring community was called.“It was frightening because the road did block, we couldn’t move,” said 54-year-old Michael Walker, Kitanya’s father. “The midwife was not really a back-up plan because we were planning to go to the hospital, but because of the roadblocks we had to call the midwife.”Both Walker and Barnett said they were not worried because the midwife was known and lived within walking distance from them.Amidst the chaos that was left in the trail of Hurricane Gilbert, Kitanya’s parents said that at midday their daughter was born with no hiccups.For Kitanya, a day shy of 25 years old, she is accustomed to her personality being likened to the climate at the time of Gilbert.“People always associate the storm with my personality, saying, ‘yuh miserable, yeh man, a Gilbert yuh born inna’,” said Kitanya, which she said are accompanied by stories about how destructive Hurricane Gilbert was and how her mother almost died because she had started feeling pain while on the road.She added too that she is still affectionately called “Gilbert baby” by many of her community members who remember the fateful day that her mother gave birth to her in subdued winds and rains.Some would also describe Gilbert as persistent and determined, because of the path of destruction it left behind, many having no option but to pick up the pieces. Today, though still temperamental, it would appear that Kitanya may have got this side of her demeanour from being born on September 13, 1988.A past student of Immaculate Conception High School and the University of the West Indies, where she majored in accounting, she graduated in 2010 with first class honours. In January 2011 she started working at PriceWaterhouseCoopers and is now two papers shy of being accepted to the professional body of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).But what happened immediately after she was born?Just a few days old, baby Kitanya had her first motorbike ride as her mother needed to get her to the hospital for her check-up. Kitanya has no memory of this.Hannah Barnett and her baby Kitanya, who came a day late.

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A day late, but still a "GILBERT BABY"